Bosh: "We're just not a good team."

Ugh .... this is a whole new low. When your star player insults your team like that. Who's should be more ashamed? The players or Colangelo who apparently built this mess?

“Defensive effort hasn’t been there for a while,” Chris Bosh said. “We have to be honest with ourselves. (Wednesday night) was just a total embarrassment. We couldn’t stop anybody. We haven’t stopped anybody all year.

“The past few games we have been outworked in every aspect. We don’t get on the ground. We don’t consistently get rebounds. We give up a lot of points in the paint. No coverage is good for us. I mean it’s just not a good team.

First off, it's my first post here, looking forward to posting on this forum more often.

I mean, there isn't much more to be said. There is no defense, there is no toughness and most importantly, there is no effort. It's really a sad situation. I've been watching the NBA ever since I was a child and I've never seen a more dreadful defense then what the Raptors have shown me this season. We've only 5 teams score less then 100 points this season and every person in the organization is to be blamed. The Raptors gave us a little tease of what the defense was gonna look like this season against the Cavs. Ever since, it's just been putrid and really hard to watch.

Something needs to happen immediately. If BC wants to keep Bosh, he's gonna have to execute a trade, even if it means getting rid of Calderon, Turkoglu or Bargnani or anyone else on the squad. Normally, I wouldn't push the panic button 20 games into the season but given the circumstances (the awful defense and the potential departure of the franchise player), it's time to act.

First off, it's my first post here, looking forward to posting on this forum more often.

Dammit .... you found me.

Welcome to the RR Forums Crip and a pleasure to have you here. Give us some time seeing how these boards are brand spankin' new. It'll take a couple months before I get this place rockin' & rollin'.

CripwalkinK wrote:

Something needs to happen immediately. If BC wants to keep Bosh, he's gonna have to execute a trade, even if it means getting rid of Calderon, Turkoglu or Bargnani or anyone else on the squad. Normally, I wouldn't push the panic button 20 games into the season but given the circumstances (the awful defense and the potential departure of the franchise player), it's time to act.

Right now unless Colangelo can come up with a miracle, Bosh will want out. And apart of me doesn't blame him. Hedo's untradable as is Jose in my opinion. The only one who could possibly be moved is Bargnani, but even then I don't know how much or who we could get for Andrea at this point.

I think we just have to accept that the likelihood of Bosh being here in Toronto after the February trade deadline is looking more and more unlikely.

To be honest with you, I'm not really concerned about getting rid of Bosh. He has every right to leave. And I think Bosh's departure could turn out good for the Raptors because then Turkoglu and Bargnani are the ones that can do damage. Although Turkoglu hasn't necessarily shown up this season and Bargnani is still too inconsistent to be a #1 option on the offensive end, I think we can receive some solid talent in return for Bosh's services. I think we have enough talent. We just need effort on the glass, effort on the defensive end and toughness.

I felt embarrassed. Even in the early years of the franchise we haven't been humiliated like this. Sure, there were blowout losses and disappointing efforts, but never for this long of a stretch. The teams of Oliver Miller and Walt Williams gave acceptable effort on most nights and that's what brought the fans, now we're just a bunch of overpaid underachievers.

Bosh's comments are dead on but he's got to look in the mirror. Somebody needs to inspire the team because it sure as hell can't be BC's puppet Triano. A team's effort is most easily judged by transition defense and ours has been piss-poor since before the Charlotte game, we just don't have it. We just don't.

See Alvin Williams there, that's what our players should be feeling and I doubt they do.

I knew this team wasn't perfect, let alone good, but I counted on consistent effort, pride and their determination to achieve something good this year and prove some people wrong. They don't feel any of that, none. They just don't care, I'm sure it bothers them that they're getting humiliated but not to the degree where they're willing to change their ways so it really doesn't matter.

Rebounding is terrible, leadership is brutal, effort is non-existent and wing-play is terrible. Poor DeRozan, I like what he's been doing all year, his effort is there and he tries to do the right things. Sometimes it ends up in a brick and fans call for his benching but ask yourself who you'll start instead? Belinelli? Wright? Weems? Are they any better? Part of me just wants to blow things up entirely and start from scratch, the other part has some crazy hope that this team can change it around.

Jose Calderon, good guy, terrible defender. So many things have to be going right for us for us to look past his defense. Chris Bosh, good offensive player, bad defender and horrible leader. Is he worth max-money? As a player, probably not, but in today's NBA, standards for max-money players are low.

If you have the game on tape, rewind back to the first quarter and see Andrea Bargnani's technique of boxing out Josh Smith. That's all you need to know about him as a defender. Good scorer though (although inconsistent) but at what point will his offense consistently make-up for his defense and then some?

Lots of question, not many answers. Can't be firing coaches, at some point Colangelo's got to look in the mirror and ask himself whether he knows what the hell he's doing.

See Alvin Williams there, that's what our players should be feeling and I doubt they do.

Great post Arsenalist.

Again tonight at the end of the game instead of being visibly pissed with his own performance as well as his team's effort, Bosh was back at it sitting on the bench laughing and joking with his teammates. This just proves to me that he likely doesn't really care because at the end of the day he knows he's getting a considerable raise whether its here or elsewhere next season.

I think Calderon's a terrible on-ball defender but a good team defender. We just don't have interior defense to help him out. DeRozan deserves more playing time in my opinion. He gets to the rim with ease and encourages contact.

Maybe an embarrassing loss is what we need to wake up but we need change and we need it as soon as possible. We have enough talent, we need guys like Shane Battier, Carl Landry, Luis Scola, Joakim Noah, Gerald Wallace, etc. These guys go to work every night and pride themselves on effort, toughness and defense.

Even in the early years of the franchise we haven't been humiliated like this. Sure, there were blowout losses and disappointing efforts, but never for this long of a stretch. The teams of Oliver Miller and Walt Williams gave acceptable effort on most nights and that's what brought the fans, now we're just a bunch of overpaid underachievers.

Good Points.

We even beat the Jordan Bulls in their prime with those teams. Sure we lost a lot, but there was excitement because sometimes we pulled off upsets, and that gave us fans a little pride.

Fuck, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or get angry at seeing that Alvin Williams/Jay Triano pic. Is Jay Triano a robot? Can he not show disappointment? Is breaking the clipboard his only programmed action of showing frustration?

I personally bought into the hype surrounding this team fairly early in the summer but even through pre-season there were easily identifiable deficiencies. Still, majority of teams in the NBA have deficiencies on both ends of the floor but they find a way to win. The Raptors have lacked this ability since last year when the team started to slip after their first 3 games. More importantly, Triano fails to adjust his plans. Anyways, plenty of fingers can be pointed in various directions and I think many of you raise some interesting and valid points... What I'd like to know is, if you were the GM of the Raptors, which of the following moves would you make:

1) Trade Bosh now because he can yield the most talent in return; but you lose your franchise player, the negative reputation of your franchise gets re-inforced, and you surround the team with even more uncertainty
2) Trade Jose Calderon because he's a shadow of what he was two years ago and is evidently a defensive liability, but you lose an efficient PG with low turnovers and someone that is actually very passionate about representing the Toronto Raptors
3) Trade Andrea Bargnani because he's inconsistent, a terrible help defender and seems pretty nonchalant, but he may still have potential and 7 footers that shoot like him dont grow on trees.

You forgot the 4th point, replace the coach. It is a simple move that can quickly decide if the problem is coaching.

What is the point of a trade if coaching is the real crux of the problem?

but coaching isn't the REAL crux of the problem...the guy who hired the coach...the guy who acquired the players...isn't that the crux of the problem? i mean, why would anyone trust that any moves BC makes at this point will actually help the team. for someone who's essentially been given carte blanche to do what he pleases (aside from going into the tax), you'd have to admit that the on-court product hasn't quite lived up to his hype. look, i've been a raptor fan (read: apologist) for as long as i can remember, and i know that things CAN change. but when you step back & examine the big picture over the last couple years, it's not like things have been trending upwards. it's like a massive headwound is being covered with some gauze & duct tape, with the expectation being that everything is just a-ok.

and why does it feel like last year all over again? weren't these things (defense, effort, rebounding, hustle, defense, effort, effort, gameplan, effort, cohesion, effort, defense) the same things that were blatantly lacking last year? jeebus, at least do a different kind of pissy job putting a team together...

This team has been on downward spiral for years now. Different players, different coaches, worse results. Only one thing hasn't changed and it's time to change it.

Colangelo has brought NOTHING to this franchise except headaches and little wiggle room. Surrounding 3-4 good players with players that are 8-9 players deep on a good team just doesn't work. Sure, you can get lucky and have the chemistry work, but Reggie Evans won't be riding on a white horse when he comes back.

The challenge should be put on the coaching staff to come up with new schemes using the players we have. If they can't produce, then Jay should be let go.....but only after Colangelo is shown the door.

The challenge should be put on the coaching staff to come up with new schemes using the players we have. If they can't produce, then Jay should be let go.....but only after Colangelo is shown the door.

Full-fledge zone defense. Live or die by it. We can't stop anybody man-to-man and we're too slow to defend. Problem with zone though is that rebounding becomes more complicated which is something else we suck at.

I don't see any answers other than the Raptors playing 100% harder in every aspect of the game.